The new owner, Integrated Media Company, also owns Fandom, Gamespot and metacritic
A majority stake of the indie game publisher Playstack is being sold to an investment company called Integrated Media Company (IMG). As first reported by Game Developer, the owner of the publisher behind hits like Balatro and The Case of the Golden Idol is selling an 84.5 percent stake to a subsidiary of IMG called VantageCo Limited for £112.4 million, or around $151 million. Playstack also released a brief and vague statement from its founder and CEO, Harvey Elliott, that said this step represented “a change in ownership, rather than a change in who we are.”
The majority stake sale from TruFin to IMG values Playstack at around £125 million, or approximately $169 million. IMG’s portfolio didn’t previously include video game publishers but the company also owns the Fandom umbrella of brands, which includes Fandom, GameSpot, metacritic and more.
It’s hard to say what this acquisition means for the deck-building roguelite that won the hearts of the Engadget squad after its release in 2024. We’re hoping it doesn’t mean many changes for Balatro since Playstack is only the publisher and the anonymous developer, localthunk, likely has more influence on the actual gameplay. That being said, private equity firms have a reputation of salting the earth for anything they acquire in the pursuit of maximizing profits.